Friday, March 15, 2013

Some refreshing anticlericalism from the new pope

The good kind, of course, that avoids the idolization of them, not the bad kind that wants to kill them. Mark Shea links Sherry Weddell linking an interview:

BERGOGLIO: Their clericalization is a problem. The priests clericalize the laity and the laity beg us to be clericalized… It really is sinful abetment. And to think that baptism alone could suffice. I’m thinking of those Christian communities in Japan that remained without priests for more than two hundred years. When the missionaries returned they found them all baptized, all validly married for the Church and all their dead had had a Catholic funeral. The faith had remained intact through the gifts of grace that had gladdened the life of a laity who had received only baptism and had also lived their apostolic mission in virtue of baptism alone. One must not be afraid of depending only on His tenderness…

Rather refreshing, given that I was once advised not to start a bible study because no one would come if I didn't have a priest there. For what purpose one is not sure.